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If you’ve not heard of SearchWiki, prepare to be amazed. It’s going to change the way you think of Google. Tired of getting some really irrelevant results? Delete the ones you don’t like, add new URLs and markup the ones that you want to come back to later.
Actually it does more than even social bookmarking –a customized Delicious account, for instance — but considering how where Google is going with its new browser (Chrome), and wiki (Knol), this wikified browser experience could be the way Google learns more about users’ needs.
I can see where this might be going. A search engine meets wiki meets social bookmarking would infect us with the collaboration virus surging through our veins. Soon, we may be able to share our customized search results with a group (a Facebook widget might make sense too) we are collaborating with.
Take a test drive my HoiPolloi Google Search Page at this customized site.
You could switch between HoiPolloiSearch and regular Google search. Even the paid search results change when you toggle between both. The pages could be free of ads for non-profits, government or educationional organizations!
I have been looking into how a GUI ( geekspeak for ‘graphic user interface’) could enhance a message, and am considering doing some cool interactive, kiosk-type visualizations in our lobby at the Decision Theater. Interactive displays such as the Campus Metabolism project from the Global Institute of Sustainability is one way to do this. It’s a web-based but is much more interesting on a touch-screen in their lobby.
But apart from aggregating data, a GUI could simplify the user experience, for news, as this site called Newstin demonstrates.
Click on the Newstin map, and it basically organizes world news from 166,000 sources, organized into about 1 million topics. Mind you, Newstin was created before the iPhone, so it’s easy to see how a widget could transfer this kind of experience to a mobile device.
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